Turkey 2.0 is a fragile state, and getting worse

Turkey under Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule has experienced enough democratic backslidingto now be considered a fragile state. Sunday’s municipal elections were deeply unfair, thanks to the government’s near-total control of the media. As a result, the outcome was predictable: the AKP won once again.

The AKP leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a perennially populist leader, speaking to the hearts of his followers, especially the poor and pious. Since 2002, they have found a voice in Erdoğan and given him landslide election victories. On Sunday in around 1,000 towns and 81 cities, voters chose the mayors and municipal leaders of Erdoğan’s new Turkey – Turkey 2.0.

But the results marked a bitter victory for the AKP, tinged with significant losses. The AKP and its far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) ally took 51.6 percent of the total vote, but lost the mayoral races in Turkey’s three biggest cities – Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir – to the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

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Published by Dr Ayla Göl

Ayla Göl is an award-winning lecturer, political analyst, writer and a Senior Fellow at the Higher Education Academy. She has strong media and news communication experience on Islam, the Middle East, and Turkey.
She holds a PhD. from the London of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she started her career as a lecturer and then worked as a Senior Lecturer and a Reader in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University. She has held Visiting Scholar positions at the Renmin University of China, the University of Cambridge, and Australian National University.
She is also the author of Turkey Facing East: Islam, Modernity and Foreign Policy (Manchester University Press, 2013); she writes for Ahval, the Conversation, The Globe post, and Open Democracy.
View all posts by Dr Ayla Göl